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Page 9

Chapter 13; Part 1 Continued...

In addition, as brought to our attention by Fr. Brian Harrison, O.S., 8 Pope Leo XIII taught clearly in 1880 in the encyclical letter Arcane Divinae Sapientiae (Christian Marriage) that Adam and Eve are our first parents and that Eve was created from a portion of Adam's body:

"We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and having breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep. God thus, in His most far-reaching foresight, decreed that this husband and wife should be the natural beginning of the human race, from whom it might be propagated, and preserved by an unfailing fruitfulness throughout all futurity of time." 9

Also, Pope Pelagius I, in writing to King Childebert I in the year 557, declared his own strong conviction that neither Adam nor Eve was born of other parents but were instead created, and that Eve was created from a portion of Adam's body:

"For I confess that all men from Adam, even to the consummation of the world, having been born and having died with Adam himself and his wife, who were not born of other parents, but were created, the one from the earth, the other [al.: altera], however, from the rib of man [cf. Gen. 2:7, 22]." 10

As Fr. Harrison points out, Vatican II, in Lumen Gentium, para. 25, recognized four conditions which must be fulfilled in order for a doctrine to be proposed infallibly by the ordinary Magisterium. He argues powerfully that these conditions had been fulfilled by the year 1880 with respect to doctrines regarding the origin of Adam and Eve recalled by Leo XIII. The effective infallible teaching of the ordinary Magisterium in Catholic Tradition, by Popes and bishops, has been rejection of naturalistic evolution of Adam and Eve. (And once infallible, always infallible - by definition.) The four conditions cited as amply fulfilled by Fr. Harrison are as follows:

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8 Brian W. Harrison, O.S., "Did The Human Body Evolve Naturally? A Forgotten Papal Declaration." Living Tradition, Nos. 73-74. (Jan.-March 1998)
9 Pope Leo XIII, encyclical letter Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae - The Pope and the People (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1910), p. 178.
10Pope Pelagius I, from Fide Pelagii in the letter Humani Generis to Childebert I, April, 557, The Sources of Catholic Dogma, Henry Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum [228a] (30th Edition, 1957).